The present invention relates to a method and a device for transmitting navigation information from a data processing center to an on-board navigation system.
Although it may be used for any desired navigation system, the present invention and various objectives are explained below with reference to a navigation system on board an automobile.
Today""s navigation systems may include the following subsystems: digital road map, computing module for travel route computation, positioning device, system management, vehicle sensor system for detecting vehicle movements, input unit and output unit for operation and/or route guidance.
The digital road map may be carried along in the navigation system on mass storage media, e.g., CD-ROMs. The digital road map may contain road networks with different coverages (e.g., Germany only) or also with different degrees of detail (e.g., highway road map and urban street network of certain regions). Furthermore, additional information to the road map, such as hotel or restaurant information for travel guides, etc., may be stored on the storage medium.
Due to the frequent changes in the road network or the additional information, or due to the more detailed or additional information acquired by the map manufacturer, the user may need to constantly update his/her digital map in order to keep up-to-date.
At the time of updating, the entire storage medium may be replaced, so that a large amount of data on the storage medium may result in an increased frequency of change and therefore higher update costs may be incurred for the user. Data seldom or never used by the user may also be updated and may be paid for proportionally. This may be complicated and costly.
European Patent No. 0 814 448 concerns a method for a dynamic route recommendation supported by a data processing center. The terminal follows one of the routes defined by the data processing center despite having its own database.
The exemplary method and/or exemplary embodiment according to the present invention may reduce the updates of the storage device (e.g., CD-ROM) of the entire database. Current data may be requested and transmitted as needed. The user may define his/her own individual navigation database and may agree upon individual update cycles and the extent thereof with the data processing center(s). The user may be offered up-to-the-minute map sections containing additional information, which may differ by region (e.g., via regional data processing centers, the regional hotel guide, parking services, general urban information, road closings, construction, etc.) by a number of associated data processing centers which possess different information contents. By coupling traffic management systems to data processing centers, the traffic may be directed by providing the map sections with attributes for travel recommendations or with traffic network areas to be avoided or omitting certain traffic network areas.
In an exemplary embodiment and/or exemplary method of the present invention, only the necessary data, e.g., the data defined by an individual request profile, may be automatically updated via a wireless interface (e.g., GSM, DAB or the like).
Automatic data transmission may provide the user, via the wireless interface, with at least a map section containing the map content and additional information individually desired or minimally needed by the user or the navigation system e.g., in the case of map transmission to the navigation system using the individual request profile (e.g., as a function of the destination and the planned travel route, etc.).
The data may be made available via the data processing center, in which up-to-the-minute map content and additional information may be stored.
Furthermore, additional information to an individual map section, updated within a specified time period, may be transmitted, for example, after the transmission of this map section.
The request profile may be transmitted using a bidirectional communication system (e.g., GSM, DAB+GSM, UMTS) as a query to a data processing center. An appropriate section of the navigation information, e.g., the digital map, may be extracted from the full database in the data processing center using the request profile of the incoming query.
The map section and the dynamic additional information may be expediently prepared so that they may be used in the receiving database of the navigation system for dynamic route search, route guidance and display without conversion. In this context, a data format desired by the navigation system may be transmitted to the data processing center, since in this way different navigation systems operating with different data formats may access the same data processing center. In addition, information may be requested by a navigation system from different data processing centers also operating with different data formats. As an alternative, the data may be prepared in a valid data format for digital maps and/or additional information to these maps, which the receiver may convert in order to use it for dynamic route search, route guidance and display.
The on-board navigation system may be implemented independently and may call the data from a data processing center automatically only as needed. The data may remain in the navigation system, e.g., may be stored there and may be used multiple times for different destinations.
Route computation may take place in the vehicle, rather than in the data processing center. The data processing center may represent only a database for road information, current traffic information, travel-relevant additional information to the map elements (e.g., occupancy figures for parking garages, detailed information concerning points of interest, including approach description, area-related information, etc.). The data processing center may filter out only the required data from the database using a request containing certain query parameters and may make it available to the navigation system. A request profile, e.g., the request, including its timing, may be determined by the on-board navigation system. The data processing center may be activated by the vehicle and therefore it may not be aware of the current position of the vehicle. The device may allow user-specific updates for example. The device may also contact a plurality of different data processing centers (simultaneously), for example, via a mobile Internet access and evaluate the data provided by the data processing center in the vehicle for the on-board route computation. The transmitted data may also contain intermodal partial routes (e.g., in the case of xe2x80x9cpark and ride,xe2x80x9d the routes in the public transportation system), which may also be evaluated in the vehicle.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the navigation system may have a data storage device for storing a navigation information database. A back-transmitted navigation information may be stored in the data storage device replacing the respective navigation information already stored in the navigation information database in order to update and/or supplement the database.
According to another exemplary embodiment, up-to-the-minute map content and additional information may be held in the data processing center as navigation information.
According to another exemplary embodiment, the individual request profile may have at least one of the following features:
a driver""s behavior, for example, average speed or the like;
a current traffic situation;
a current position;
a travel destination;
a planned travel route;
a optimization criteria for the route search;
exclusion of certain road classes or additional information;
desired additional information;
desired update frequency for time-variable additional information;
data format of the database used in the navigation system;
geographic area description of the desired map section; and
segments contained in the desired map section, which may partially delimit or encircle the map section.
According to another exemplary embodiment, communication may be conducted with a plurality of data processing centers.